A STUDY OF VERY LARGE SCALE POST COMBUSTION CO2

CAPTURE AT A REFINING & PETROCHEMICAL COMPLEX

M. Simmonds 1, P. Hurst 1, M.B. Wilkinson 1, C. Watt 2 and C.A. Roberts 3
1
BP plc, Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex, TW16 7LN, UK
2
BP plc, Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, FK3 9QX, UK
3
Fluor Ltd, Watchmoor Park, Camberley, Surrey, GU15 3YL, UK

ABSTRACT

The CO2 Capture Project (CCP) is a joint project of eight major energy companies working to make
significant reductions in the cost of capturing and storing CO2. The CCP is developing a range of
technologies; post-combustion, oxyfuel and pre-combustion decarbonisation. To ensure realism, “real world”
scenarios, based on actual sites, have been established. One scenario is based upon the BP Grangemouth
refinery and petrochemical complex located in the UK. This paper presents a study of the cost and
practicability of capturing CO2 from the site using today’s best available technology.

The paper examines issues of retrofitting a very large scale, post combustion, amine based capture facility. It
is designed to capture 2,000,000 tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide which is compressed to 220 bar(a) for
pipeline transmission to a North Sea oil field where it can be used for Enhanced Oil Recovery. Alternatively,
it could also be stored in depleted reservoirs or deep saline formations.

The study provides a firm basis for comparison with other technologies and develops a feasible process design
and cost estimate. The paper discusses the environmental impacts, the benefits and the challenges to be
addressed by anyone considering post combustion capture at this unprecedented scale.

INTRODUCTION

The CCP identified amine scrubbing as the best available technology for post combustion CO2 capture and
they requested Fluor to use their proprietary Econamine FGSM process to produce a baseline process design
and cost estimate. Econamine FGSM uses MEA scrubbing with chemical inhibitors to counter the effects of
corrosion caused by oxygen in the flue gas. The process is well developed and has been widely used at small
scale to produce high purity CO2 for the food industry. However it has never been built at the required scale
of 6,000 tonnes per day.

The CCP Grangemouth scenario requires application of amine scrubbing to refinery fired heaters (burning low
sulphur fuel oil and natural gas), power plant boilers (burning low sulphur fuel oil) and chemical plant
reaction furnaces (burning sulphur free natural gas).

The site is divided geographically into two major process areas, which dictates that multiple collection
systems based on large blowers and conventional ducting are required. Two sets of Econamine FGSM
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absorbers and one common solvent recovery plant were chosen as the study basis. These plants are of very
large dimensions and the issues posed by integration of such large plants into an already congested complex
are addressed by the study. Sophisticated computer modelling and visualisation using Fluor’s Optimeyes
system was used to do this. Clear visualisations of plant layout options can be produced very rapidly with this
system. An example of one of the resulting visualisations is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: A visualisation of part of the CO2 Capture Plant - the man standing in
front of the two large absorbers gives an impression of scale

Retrofitting a post combustion capture scheme this large overwhelms existing plant infrastructure.
Considerable augmentation of existing offsite and utility systems are required to meet the very high energy
demands of the CO2 capture plant. This results in the release of additional CO2 and low-grade heat to the
atmosphere via cooling towers and introduces the issue of cold stack plumes. These environmental impacts
have to be weighed against the captured and avoided emissions of CO2, SOx and NOx.

FLUE GAS GATHERING SYSTEM

Detailed ducting layout and optimisation studies were undertaken, which resulted in an overall flue gas
collection network comprising around 2 kilometres of ducting and having a maximum cross-sectional area of
9 square metres. The blower power demand to push flue gases through this ducting network is around 15
megawatts, with a further 10 megawatts required to power additional blowers to overcome the pressure drop
imposed by the structured packing of the Econamine FGSM absorbers and the downstream stack. Despite the
very large scale of the ducting network and associated blowers, the system is regarded as technically feasible.

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The ducting studies provide an accurate basis for the cost estimate. If such a system were to be built, careful
consideration would have to be given to safety hazards from ducting flue gas at low level and the
interconnection of heater fire boxes via the duct system.

SOx AND NOx REMOVAL

The Econamine FGSM process is best operated at low levels of SO2 (10ppmv) and NOx (20ppmv) to avoid
excessive degradation of the solvent. Since there could be up to 300 ppmv of NOx and 280 ppmv of SO2 in
some of the flue gas sources, pre-treatment upstream of the Econamine FGSM absorbers is necessary.

Selective Catalytic Reduction using ammonia injection was chosen for removing NOx and there is a wide
range of potential suppliers for this technology. Since flue gas re-heating is considered to be either costly or
inefficient to implement in this scenario, catalysts were selected which allow operation at low flue gas
temperatures of 250-300°C. Although this is lower than seen in the majority of current commercial
installations, duct mountable catalysts are available which can achieve the desired performance.

A technology review showed that, of the options available for SOx removal, the best available technology for
this application is the near commercial Cansolv process. Cansolv is an amine scrubbing process producing a
concentrated SO2 stream and comparatively low effluent emissions when compared with more conventional
scrubbing processes. Whilst other technologies could have been selected, it is thought likely that all
technologies would have a similar total life cycle cost.

Figure 2 shows a block flow diagram of the overall capture plant, illustrating the North and South site flue gas
gathering systems, pre-treatment requirements and the Econamine FGSM process.

Figure 2: Block diagram of the Gas Gathering, Pre-treatment & Capture System

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ECONAMINE FGSM PROCESS

The Econamine FGSM system is divided into two processing areas, as dictated by the North/South
geographical layout of the site. On both the North and South sites, two Econamine FGSM absorption towers
are located downstream of the pre-treatment system (SO2 and NOx removal, as required by the types of fuel
being used on each site), with the rich amine solution from both sites being fed to a common stripping tower
located on the South site. Whilst this layout avoids the excessive lengths of large cross-section ducting and
associated high blower power requirements that would be needed to move flue gases between sites, it still
requires significant diameter amine circulation lines, high pump power loads and a very large plant wide
inventory of amine.

Some very large equipment is necessary at this scale of operation, with each absorber having a diameter of
10.3 metres and the single, common stripper having a diameter of 10.4 metres. It is believed that there are no
particular technical barriers to scaling mass transfer equipment up to these sizes, however significant site
fabrication would be necessary in view of transport restrictions on maximum sizes.

UTILITY PLANTS

Retrofitting a post combustion capture process of this scale requires the provision of significant utility systems
to meet the high energy demands of CO2 capture and with existing utility capacity constrained, a new utility
complex is required.

The total energy consumption of the post combustion capture process is 396 megawatts, fired as natural gas in
the combined heat and power (CHP) plant to produce steam and power from a back pressure turbine. Table 1
shows the key utility demands of the capture plant.

TABLE 1

UTLITY PLANT CHARACTERISTICS

Utility Quantity Units Plant Description

Steam 480 tonnes per hour CHP plant (back pressure turbine)
Power 72 megawatts CHP plant (72 MW generator)
Cooling Water 18,139 cubic metres per hour Two cooling towers (10,000 m3/h each)
Natural Gas 396 megawatts Direct import for CHP firing
Water 1,025 tonnes per hour Direct import for system makeup

ENVIRONMENTAL EMISSIONS

Whilst the purpose of the capture plant is to reduce emissions to atmosphere by capturing the CO2 and
reducing the emitted SOx and NOx, there are a series of waste streams associated with the operation of the
plant. Table 2 summarises the capture plant emissions.

The single largest emission is the water vapour from the cooling tower (8 million tonnes per annum or
approximately 1,000 tonnes per hour). This is the evaporation load associated with the plant cooling systems.
Further emissions of water vapour occur from the utility plant boiler stack. This amount of additional water is
released from the plant in the form of low temperature vapour plumes, which will be highly visible. Further
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studies are required to investigate ways of mitigating this by use of reheat, possibly via entrainment into the
cooling tower air stream. Decarbonised flue gas is rejected to the atmosphere at low temperature and this will
again cause a visible stack plume.

The utility plant boiler emits around 0.6 million tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide. If desired, it would be
feasible to capture this along with the 2.0 million tonnes per annum targeted for capture from the site flue gas
streams, however this was not done in this study.

The plant produces chemical effluents from the amine scrubbing process and the CANSOLV unit. Traces of
amine are emitted from the absorber although features are included to mitigate this. There could also be a
small slippage of ammonia from the Selective Catalytic Reduction process, although with careful control
strategies, this can be mitigated.

TABLE 2

PLANT EMISSONS

Source Type of Emission Quantity*1 Units

Boiler stack Carbon dioxide 0.5 million tonnes per
annum
Cooling Towers Water vapour 8.0 million tonnes per
annum
Cansolv unit High Total Dissolved Solids water (Recycled to -
cooling tower)
Utility plant blowdown High Total Dissolved Solids water (Recycled to -
cooling tower)
Econamine blowdown Medium Total Dissolved Solids water (Recycled to -
cooling tower)
Amine reclaimer waste Organic waste stream 17.5 cubic metres per day
Cansolv unit Sulphur dioxide 0.6 (to sulphur tonnes per hour
plant)
*1
: Note – Annual operation based on 330 operating days per year.

COST OF CARBON DIOXIDE CAPTURE

Table 3 gives a break down of the total capital cost of the CO2 capture plant by plant area.

TABLE 3

CAPITAL COSTS

Capture Plant Unit Millions

US$
Gas gathering systems 39
NOx and SOx removal 74
Econamine FGSM 166
CO2 drying and compression 48
Utility and offsite systems 149

TOTAL 476

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At the time of writing, a full breakdown of annual operational costs for the capture plant was unavailable, but
preliminary calculations highlight the issue that they are dominated by the price of natural gas used to raise
steam in the facility. Although work on project economics is yet to be completed, indicative figures place the
likely cost of CO2 capture from the facility (expressed as US$/tonne of CO2 captured) in the range $50/tonne
CO2 to $60/tonne CO2 and these unit costs will be extremely sensitive to future swings in gas price.

CONCLUSIONS

The present study has demonstrated that, despite the unprecedented scale, the post combustion capture of
6,000 tonnes per day of carbon dioxide from a range of process heaters and boilers across a refinery and
petrochemical complex is technically feasible, using today’s best available technology.

The size of process equipment and the associated infrastructure required to support the capture plant would
have a significant impact on any existing refinery/petrochemical complex. The study has both highlighted and
gone on to assess the cost impacts of a wide range of issues, many of which would be a common feature of
any retrofit, post combustion capture project of this scale.

The capture plant produces a high purity, high pressure stream of 6,000 tonnes per day CO2 (equivalent to 2.0
million tonnes per annum), suitable for use with an Enhanced Oil Recovery project or as an injectant stream
for storage of CO2 in a depleted reservoir or deep saline formation but in doing so, emits a further 0.6 million
tonnes per annum of CO2 to satisfy the plants energy requirements.

Costs have been derived which, together with similar studies on other CO2 capture scenarios (not reported
here), will form the basis for comparison with future technology developments and will allow the participant
companies of the CO2 Capture Program to assess the cost reduction opportunities available from such
developments.

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